A Case of the.... The Vampire Diaries - Episode 3-9

Since none of my friends watch The Vampire Diaries, and I don’t frequent message boards (in order to avoid spoilers), I’m really not sure what the overall perspective of this season has been. But, for my money, the third season has been on fire! It’s really been one great episode after another, and even the “filler” episodes have provided some fun moments and/or interesting character development. None of the storylines have seemed rushed or illogical, and the character shifts have not only been fun, but they’ve also made me care more about each individual character. Am I alone here, or has everybody been enjoying the season thus far?

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Alright, with that (straightforward) gushing out of the way, this week was the mid-season finale and it was a pretty explosive episode (and that would be gushing that isn’t straightforward). In its final few seasons, Smallville relied heavily on the “___ days/hours ago” manner of storytelling and it usually worked, even though it was entirely unnecessary at times. I was a tad worried this episode would fall into that category (I mean, why begin with Stefan on the phone with Klaus, only to flash back mid-discussion to the preparation for the phone call?) but looking back (ha!) it was actually a really fun, exciting way to tell the story. Yes, that initial example may have been a bit much, but not knowing how things were going to play out – and then fully understanding why things happened the way they did – made for a pretty thrilling hour.

Remember what I said in the introduction about how I cared about all of the characters? Well, that was an important aspect of this episode, as everybody played a part in the night’s events. And through it all, their motivations made sense, and you truly understood their nature. It quickly became obvious that Mikael is NOT a good guy. As Rebekah noted, he was the one who made the family into monsters, and he was the one who had mistreated Klaus throughout his life. And when push came to shove, he had absolutely no qualms about murdering Elena – an innocent, powerless girl who was on his side. For her part, Rebekah ended up being a relatively sweet girl who was willing to kill her brother, despite loving him, because she knew it was for the best (and for that matter, Elena staking Rebekah was a pretty shocking, bad ass moment). Tyler showed that he was still willing to do whatever it took to protect his friends, even though he was under the control of Klaus.

Probably my favorite character performances, however, were Stefan and Katherine. When Damon oh-so-casually mentioned that Katherine told him that Mikael feeds on vampires, I grinned ever so slightly, as it confirmed that she survived the attack. After hearing that, I did suspect her to play a role in the conclusion (and I loved that Mikael didn’t realize it was Katherine and not Elena). And Stefan continued his fun turn as a guy who doesn’t really give a damn, but still has a soft spot for his brother. And, like last week, it was his loyalty to Damon that led to Klaus’ survival (likewise, it was Elijah’s loyalty to HIS family that caused him to save Klaus last season).

In fact, the flashback between Katherine and Stefan, where their portion of the plan was revealed, was perhaps my favorite part of the entire episode. Since Katherine’s return, most of her scenes have been with Damon (which I’ve enjoyed), but her interaction with Stefan this episode was a lot of fun. I loved how Katherine disappeared from the party to wake Stefan, so that – unbelievably – she could knock him out of his senses so that they could save Damon. And in the car, she finally revealed to Stefan that there is a piece of humanity in her, and that she did truly love both of them. It was actually a really great series of scenes, adding a great deal of complexity to all of the characters involved. Actually, Stefan and Katherine as a bad ass pair that don’t give a damn (but kinda sorta do) could be a whole lot of fun over the second half of the season.

Well, that’s it for the mid-season finale. See you guys in January! In the meantime, be sure to visit my blog and, of course, follow me on Twitter!